This invention relates to an automatic processing machine to be used for processing of a light-sensitive color photographic material. More particularly, it pertains to an automatic processing machine for a light-sensitive color photographic material constituted substantially of processing tanks for color developing, bleach-fixing and stabilizing processing, having substantially no water washing tank.
In photographic processing, when the light-sensitive photographic material to be processed is for color, it is constituted to carry out automatically the steps of, for example, color developing, bleaching, fixing, water washing and stabilization, and sometimes bleaching and fixing may be conducted in the bleach-fixing processing in a both endowed with both functions. In photographic processing, there is the method of batch system processing, in which a processing solution in an amount necessary for development is housed in a processing tank such as color developing tank and development is effected while immersing a light-sensitive color photographic material in the processing solution in this tank. This is generally called as the tank development. According to this method, water washing is performed with pooled water, but it generally involves the drawback to impair stability of the color dye, and there is also the drawback that the color developing solution will be fatigued after 2 to 3 times of processing to be changed in color developing characteristics. To compensate for this drawback, there is the method in which processing is performed while supplementing the components consumed corresponding to the fatigue, but it is difficult to process stably a large amount of light-sensitive color photographic materials according to this batch processing. For this reason, it has generally been practiced to maintain always constantly the finished photographic performance by supplementing successively the components consumed while processing continuously the photographic materials, thereby maintaining the processing solution components at constant levels.
On the other hand, similarly as such photographic characteristics, durable storability of dyes in color photography is also an important characteristic, and it is presently very commonly accepted to maintain the durable storability by performing sufficient water washing processing. Accordingly, in commercial continuous color photographic processing, a large amount of water is required, and the amount of discharged water is also large, whereby the conditions of location affording supplying and discharging of large amounts of washing water have been required.
Whereas, in these days, the cost of civil tap water is increasing abruptly due to elevation in the development cost of water, and also the cost in discharging sewage water is also continuing to be increased. Such an elevation in cost of water may be due to merely an economical reason, but, on the other hand, in large cities with great populations, it is really occurring that supply cannot pace up with expanded demand. Thus, water resource, which has been said to be infinite, is now coming to the era of finiteness, and shortage of water leading to limited water supply is really occurring somewhere in Japan. In such a district, the situation is so serious as lacking for drinking water or laundering water, and it may be considered to be difficult to ensure washing water in photographic processing. And, in large cities, a water-saving type society is going to be created, in which people are not tolerant enough to afford use of a large quantity of water for washing in photographic processing.
Also, generally speaking, around these respective automatic processing machines, working spaces of desired vastness are necessary, in which works such as control of supplementing cocks, calibration of evaporation, exchange of processing solutions and dissolution of supplemental solutions are conducted. It is not desirable to have tap water piping for washing water or piping for discharged solution at the feet of these workers, because they are dangerous in working environment. Further, for installing newly or moving an automatic processing machine, piping construction is necessarily required, for which time and cost are necessary. For this reason, it would be desirable to have an automatic processing machine having a discharged solution recovery tank.
Further, as another tendency in recent years, the color automatic development processing is shifting from a large scale laboratory processing to a small size laboratory processing, and the so-called mini-laboratories with smaller amounts of processing are rapidly increasing. In such small size laboratories, miniaturization of an automatic developing machine is strongly desired. And, in such a small scale automatic processing machine, in addition to the demand for enabling omission of tap water piping for water washing, there is the demand for also omitting the piping for permitting the discharged processing solutions discharged from respective processing tanks to flow into the sewage waterway, and the volume of the discharged solution recovery tank is desired to be made as small as possible for this purpose.
And, the processing methods to perform stabilizing processing immediately after bleach-fixing or fixing processing without performing washing with water have been proposed by the present Applicant in Japanese Provisional Patent Publications Nos. 14834/1983, 34448/1983, 132146/1982 and 18631/1983, etc. in which counter-measures to overcome the above problems are clarified. However, as the result of the study by the present inventors, these methods were also found to involve various problems. For example, in the water washings of the prior art, since a large amount of water is employed, the preceding bath components brought in attached on the light-sensitive materials are considerably diluted therewith. Accordingly, the discharged solution could be discharged as such into rivers or sewage waterways. Whereas, in performing the above stabilizing processing, a large amount of the preceding bath components will become accumulated in the stabilizing processing solution, and therefore the discharged solution cannot be discharged as such into rivers or sewage waterways as prohibited by statutory regulations in pollution. For this reason, the discharged solutions must be recovered by specialists in disposal of discharged solutions with payment of recovery fees. Consequently, while no cost required for washing water may be necessary, an enormous amount of cost becomes necessary for disposal of said discharged solution.
Further, according to the study by the present inventors, the following problems have been found to be involved.
That is, during conveying light-sensitive materials by a conveying means such as a conveying belt or conveying rolls, if said conveying means is constituted of an endless belt, the stabilizing solution components filled in the stabilizing tank which is the final tank of the processing tanks is brought by the said endless belt into the color developing tank which is the foremost tank of the processing tanks to be accumulated therein, thereby changing the component ratio of said color developing solution, even accelerating deterioration (air oxidation) of the solution, ultimately affecting markedly bad influences on photographic performance. Thus, it has been found difficult to lower the amount of the solution supplemented to the color developing solution at a certain level or lower. This means that there is a limit in reduction of the amount of the discharged solution accompanied with supplement of the processing solution, thus indicating that the volume of the discharged solution recovery tank provided for the demand for prevention of pollution or the demand for silver recovery cannot be reduced and also that the tank recovery frequency cannot be reduced. Such a fact poses no problem in automatic processing machines of the prior art provided with a water washing processing tank with running water as the final tank of the processing tanks, and it is a problem inherent in the automatic processing machine which performs stabilizing processing as substituted for water washing as in the present invention.